In crafting a teenage boys program coming up with the Tail Feather Society, I’ve been re-reading my highlights from ‘Nature & The Human Soul’ by Bill Plotkin.
It’s reminding me about the imaginal realm and symbolically rich imagery that is woven into the imagination of our young people as they hear oral stories. For anyone who has had the pleasure of oral storytelling you will know that feeling when minds and hearts are drinking up the story and you can almost feel it passing the peripheral understanding and weaving threads into their knowing selves.
Bill writes “Children might consciously understand only the surface layer of these stories, but the stories will resound within their psyche for a lifetime, providing doorways that can be opened only later.”
As I work on a mythical tale about the changes that have happened in my local community with the impacts of Covid and the influx of new residents, I’m sitting and waiting for those symbolic images that carry weight in the imaginal realm to arrive – to signify the momentous moments of change, and the momentous opportunities to be crafting a vision of the future that we can weave together. I’m watching universe, I’m watching. I’m waiting universe, I’m waiting.